The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, has been re-elected in a landslide victory, endorsing his efforts to re-engage with the west and offer greater freedoms at home.

More than 41.2 million people voted out of 56 million who were eligible to do so. The two other lesser known candidates, Mostafa Aqa-Mirsalim and Mostafa Hashemi-Taba, got 478,215 and 215,450 votes respectively.

“Hope prevailed over isolation,” the former president and key Rouhani ally Mohammad Khatami posted on Instagram, along with a photo of Rouhani making a victory sign, Reuters reported. Iran’s state television congratulated Rouhani on his re-election.

The incumbent saw off a strong challenge from Raisi, a fellow cleric with radically different politics who stirred up populist concerns about the sluggish economy, lambasted Rouhani for seeking foreign investment and appealed to religious conservatives.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, issued a statement addressed to the Iranian people in which he praised the “massive and epic” turnout.

“The winner of the elections is you, the Iranian people, and the Islamic establishment, which has managed to win the increasing trust of this big nation despite the enemies’ plot and effort,” he wrote.

Trita Parsi, of the National Iranian American council, said the results showed Iranians had chosen “a path of gradual transformation through peaceful participation”.

“President Rouhani’s convincing win is a sharp rebuke to Iran’s unelected institutions that were a significant brake on progress during his first term,” he said. “It is also a rebuke of Washington hawks who openly called for either a boycott of the vote, or for the hardline candidate Ebrahim Raisi to win in order to hasten a confrontation.”

Khamenei, a hardliner thought to have favoured Raisi in the election and as a possible successor for his own job, generally steers clear of daily politics but controls powerful bodies from the judiciary to the Revolutionary Guards.

The scale of voter turnout was the highest for many years.The governor of the northern province of Gilan was quoted as saying the turnout there was 80%. In Yazd, the home city of former reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, there was 91% participation.

Congratulations to Iran

Congratulations to Iran for voting against religious hardliners in favor of reform. If given a choice in free elections, people will vote for freedom against tyranny.

On January 22, 2009, his second day in office, he issued an executive order, directing that the prison be shut down within a year. When detainees got the news, they shouted to the guards, “Have you heard? We’re getting out of here!”

Guantánamo, which has held as many as seven hundred and seventy-nine prisoners, now houses just seventy-six. But it remains open, at a cost of $445 million last year—an expensive reminder that the United States, contrary to the ideals of its judicial system, is willing to hold people captive, perhaps for life, without a trial.

As a candidate, President Donald Trump pulled no punches in his criticism of the Obama administration’s multilateral pact with Tehran to curb the Iranian nuclear program. The deal stank, he said then.

Now his secretary of state is, for the time being, certifying it.
“I’ve been doing deals for a long time, I’ve been making lots of wonderful deals — great deals — that’s what I do. Never, ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran. And I mean, never.”

When it comes to the Iran deal, Trump has, for the moment, changed. Blaring skepticism has given way to (yet another) pragmatic adjustment. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday delivered a letter to Congress confirming that Iran has kept up its end of the controversial bargain.

The letter pads what will be an unpopular conclusion among GOP hawks with word that Trump has ordered a review of plans to lift sanctions in accordance with the deal, citing the Iranian government’s ties to assorted terror groups. To follow through on the implicit threat would, ironically, put the US in defiance of the terms of the agreement.

Former Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson, kidnapped by Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, in 1985 and held for nearly seven years, offered a pretty good preview.

“The Iranians aren’t at Trump’s beck and call, and they won’t be if he’s elected president,” Anderson told The New Yorker. “It’s so idiotic that I don’t know how to address it. One of the first things a president learns when he comes into office is that he can’t simply order things and make them happen — in our government, let alone anyone else’s.“

On January 22, 2009, his second day in office, Obama issued an executive order closing the prison in Cuba in a year. It never happened. Similarly, Many of the things Trump campaigned for are unlikely to ever happen either.

Iran would actually be a better ally than our alleged ally Saudi Arabia. It was Saudi Nationals, not Iraqis, not Iranians behind 911.

It is long, long past time — for the United States government to come clean with the American people, and with the families of Americans slaughtered on 9/11 by 19 jihadists, 15 of them Saudis. The government must disclose the 28 pages of the 2002 congressional report on the 9/11 attacks that it has shamefully withheld from the public for 14 years. Those pages outline Saudi complicity in the jihad.

It is nothing short of disgraceful that the Bush and Obama administrations, relying on the president’s constitutional authority over foreign intelligence and the conduct of foreign affairs, have concealed these materials. It is equally disgraceful that Congress has indulged this decision in the context of its own fact-finding exercise. This has been done under the pretense that the Saudi government is a stalwart counterterrorism ally of the United States — an absurd proposition that passes the laugh test only if one accepts the even more absurd premise that Islam has nothing to do with jihadist terrorism. The Saudis are the world’s chief propagator of sharia supremacism, sharia being the law of the Sunni kingdom.

Several Saudi connections to 9/11, as well as our government’s disturbing appearance of not wanting to know the depth of Saudi culpability, have been reported over the years. Let’s look at some of the main ones.

The article starts out slow, but goes into great detail the known involvement of Saudi officials in 911. I highly recommend reading the entire thing.

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Yeah, and the last time the Americans started a civil war it was over the South’s fear that the Northern abolitionists, small time Yankee shop keepers and farmers, dominating the federal government wouldn’t enforce the fugitive slave act and so Uncle Tom wouldn’t get whipped for his failure to pick too big to fail plantation cotton, instead of today’s Blue Cross. Movable type printing, plantation cotton gins, and computers for corporate high frequency trading do have social consequences when the living constitution means whatever five old farts happen to say it means.

Just as the neo-cons and neo-keynesians in Congress do ***NOT*** speak for the American people (see Congress’ free falling public approval rating, regardless of which party is supposedly looting the place)… the opinions of Iran’s government hardliners and religious extremists do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Iran’s citizens.

Tehran (the government) has committed grave atrocities all over the place — including the attack on US marine barracks in Beruit, and continued support for shia rebel groups in Lebanon and Syria (they are who the Sunni/Saudi’s are fighting).

But many US citizens are uninformed or misinformed about the things Washington DC does in our names, and I have to wonder how many things does Tehran do without the knowledge or consent of their citizens?

We have one heck of a swamp in Washington DC, and Trump is having mixed results trying to drain it of corruption. Seems the swap in Tehran is very similar to DC.

Lets put Congress and the Iranian extremists into a steel cage death match — let them fight it out among themselves. Regular citizens of both countries will be better off letting corrupt politicians from both countries kill each other without involving citizenry.

Before Saddam was gassing kurds he was gassing iranian troops in the Iran-Iraq war that was started by Saddam and that was done with american supplied arms and gassing equipment and ingredients provided by european firms.
This was when Saddam was still the Golden boy of americans with Donald Rumsfeld hugging Saddam with a smile for killing so many iranians in a war that was payback for overthrow for the american puppet regime in Iran of the shah by iranian religious nutjobs.
Saddam was american puppet during Iraq-Iran war.
Shah of Iran was an american puppet also before being overthrown by iranian religious nutjobs after Shah had destroyed the democratic alternatives in Iran that were not religious nutjobs.
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If Mexico started an USA-Mexico war killing millions of americans and waged war with guns provided by Iran and gassed americans with gas equipment and ingredients provided by iranian allies what would USA do?
This is what USA and allies did to Iran through the Iraq-Iran war started by Saddam with US backing.
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The original gas pipeline plans are by Qatar (sunni) and Saudi Arabia (sunni) that would like to guarantee that in the event of say a war against Iran(shia) by USA or Saudi Arabia or a “coalition” Iran could not retaliate by blocking all traffic in the Persian Gulf thereby stopping oil and gas deliveries from Qatar and Iraq to Europe and some oil deliveries from Saudi Arabia to USA.
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ISIS started attacking Assad after Assad said NO to the gas and oil pipeline plans by Qatar and Saudi Arabia thru Syria because neither Iran nor Russia wanted those because pipelines thru Syria would make it easier to attack Iran without impacting oil and gas deliveries and later attack Russia without impacting oil and gas deliveries because russian oil and gas could be replaced by Qatari and Saudi oil and gas.
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There are many people in US deep state who have sold their souls and support pure evil (ISIS, Al-QAida, wahhabism,salafism, Saudi Arabia, Qatar) just for a dollar and a paycheck…

Trump’s not draining anything of anything. “Corrupt swamp” is just another descriptive phrase for government. Draining a swamp means making it smaller; turning it into a non-swamp. In political terms, shrinking government; turning it into non-government. Which Trump is not even trying. Heck, he’s probably too dense to even realize what trying would entail.

Glad Rouhani won.
Last month I spent a couple of weeks touring Iran. Lovely people who are warm and polite. Some of the gardens and islamic architecture are real retina burners. Much more liberal than portrayed by our dubious media. They originally had 199 people standing for president but the numbers are reduced otherwise the ballot paper would be longer than a Leonard Cohen song.

Trump is on the war path with Iran. Couple that with the 350 billion dollar arms deal he just signed with Saudis, and you kinda get a feeling that all those pictures you took might be the last pics of the”good ol’ days” of Iran. Wesly Clark talked about that plan to take out 5 countries… this may be the completion of that plan.

PS — I don’t know if Saudi Arabia created ISIS (thought it was Qatar? maybe with Saudi blessing / money?). Whomever created ISIS, Mish neglected to mention that Hilary Clinton made sure that weapons from the former Qadafi regime got boxed up in the Benghazi consulate annex and shipped into Syria…. and she wasn’t afraid to sacrifice a US ambassador to keep the weapons shipment quiet.

The Obama regime armed ISIS in their zealous (and pointless) attempt to oust Syria’s Assad. Its not that Assad is a nice guy (he is not) — but its not obvious why the people of the US share Washington DC’s hostility. It is obvious that if the US government kills Assad (yeah, yeah, “replace him”) — the alternatives to his regime are much much worse.

The Clinton Initiative profits from this nonsense. Neocons like John McCain profit from endless war. George Soros profits from both financing the hostilities and from the “humanitarian non-profit” fraud afterwards.

Lets call a spade a spade and admit that Washington DC is not going to implicate Saudi Arabia or Iran in anything — because Washington DC is a big part of the problem

I said the US armed ISIS… certainly Hiliary Clinton was in the thick of it (sacrificing a US ambassador in a failed attempt to keep her involvement quiet). Obama rushed to blame the consulate attack on a youtube video (something he knew was nonsense before he said it) — which means Obama was in on it too.

So you want to bicker over whether Obama’s signature appears above or below Qatar and Saudi signatures on ISIS’s “articles of incorporation”?

Mish and many other people will refuse to see that 9/11 attack was too technologically advanced to have been done by Saudi Arabia or any one or two countries. Such an attack had to be a hugely coordinated affair with even some occult practices as well. Of course that would be talking too weird a sleeping world

– one is a hole in the ground (no big passenger plane)
– the hole in the Pentagon is way too small. Where are the tons of Titanium alloys from the engines etc.? Looks like a cruise missile…
– They had removed the bomb sniffing dogs in the weeks before the event. Then there was military grade NANO THERMITE found in the dust.
-Errm, what about “Building 7”?

Bearded blokes are a nice enemy. Let’s do our 2 minutes of hate (as described by George Orwell in 1984).

Like most , I was ready to believe my own eyes at the time. What I found odd was they packed up the crime scene and shipped it off to China for scrap just as fast as they could. Obviously not standard procedure in such an occurence.

What about building 7? It was on fire and burned completely out of control for several hours. Well in advance of its collapse, it was expected it might, which was why the NYFD abandoned the idea of fighting the various fires, having already lost 343 firefighters.

Note the smoke. Seven World Trade was on fire. Totally out of control fire was the common denominator in all the buildings that collapsed.

Note that floors on the left side of the building failed under the east penthouse. Also the roof caved in on the east end of the building. The east penthouse caved into the building. Other video showed floor to ceiling flames pouring out windows on the east side of the building on or about the 8th floor, earlier.

Note the curve in the roof line. Note the eastern portion of the north wall bending to the west. Floors have already collapsed in the eastern end of the building, thus there was no lateral stability at the the time of this still frame. The collapse was not symmetrical, as claimed by the conspiracy theorists.

The classic signs of a controlled demolition are missing. There was no staccato of rapid succession explosive charges going off just before WTC7 collapsed.

“It looks like a demo” is not evidence that it was a demo. Wishful thinking doesn’t make it so.

Those buildings did and there was nothing really odd about the way they collapsed. The Twin Towers were not designed in the same manner as other skyscrapers. The collapse in both Towers began in the fire zone. Each was consistent with the airliner damage and pattern of fire involvement.

“That might be why so many Archs & Engineers do not believe the official story. ”

Anyone can view the videos of the Towers crashed into and the fires that followed. It is obvious that totally out of control fire was the direct cause of the Towers collapse.

The collapse of Seven World Trade began in the eastern end of the building and was progressive in nature, with floors below the the east penthouse collapsing, resulting in the penthouse, as well as the eastern part of the roof, falling into the building. There was nothing symmetrical about that. Symmetrical is a false claim of the critics.

Seven World Trade would not have collapsed, had it not been struck by debris from the collapsing One World Trade. It was a coincidence of location, that Seven World Trade was struck by that debris.

“there was nothing really odd about the way they collapsed”. Yeah , if you’re bringing the building down with demolitions. Otherwise , it’s VERY fucking odd.”

Only in your imagination.

The videos showed the top 15 floors of WTC1 simply gave way. The progression of the fire had weakened the structural integrity in the fire zone. In WTC2, most of the columns at the 81st floor on the east wall had bowed in and the collapse initiated at this level. The progression of the fire had weakened the structural integrity in the fire zone.

Check out the “debris field” from the crash site of Flight 93. I’m not an expert but is this how planes crash land? Leaving behind “nothing larger than a phone book”? Mind you, Flight 93 was allegedly commandeered by brave passengers who rose up in defiance of their assailants. Uh-huh, okay, sure. Why not?

Over 100 bodies and both black boxes were recovered from the remote site in Egypt where the Russian plane crashed in 2015. Watch this video link and ask yourself if you are not watching an early version of what we today know as a drone strike.

Flight 93 was completely obliterated! There was no “let’s roll” storyline to this thing, the US government destroyed that aircraft. Look for yourself. Again, almost nobody knew in 2001 what a drone strike is and hence, never asked about it.

If that plane was barreling nose first towards the earth, it might explain the small impact site, but the passengers? No passengers were attempting to do anything except hold onto whatever they could since they would be getting tossed about the cabin. That is if they were even able to get free of their seat belts at all. Never mind staying on their feet. It’s all very dramatic and ultimately fictional.

To top things off, Saudi ranking officials got access to US airspace right away on Sep 12th I believe. Why were they exempted from the no-fly order imposed over US domestic airspace? After all, they had no connection to these events, right? It’s a bunch of baloney.

“If that plane was barreling nose first towards the earth, it might explain the small impact site, but the passengers? No passengers were attempting to do anything except hold onto whatever they could since they would be getting tossed about the cabin.”

The jetliner was flying level when a group of passengers attempted to break into cockpit. After that point, the hijackers decided to pilot the jetliner into the ground. Why did you leave that part out? Inconvenient?

“To top things off, Saudi ranking officials got access to US airspace right away on Sep 12th I believe. Why were they exempted from the no-fly order imposed over US domestic airspace?”

You know the answer to that. There was a lot of anger as a result of 9/11. The Saudi government said they were concerned about the safety of those who were later flown out of the U.S.

“Where did the recording come from, Ron J?”

As you know, one of the passengers said, let’s roll, during a phone call just before they stormed the cockpit door. The cockpit voice recorder was also recovered from the crash site.

USA is main culprit in 9-11. Flight schools in Arizona and Florida did all the 9-11 terrorist training. FBI field agents were blocked by superiors from investigating and unraveling the plot despite it being obvious. Bush II’s lame excuse was he lacked the flight numbers and times to stop the attack. Thus, USA from top to bottom was more responsible than Saudis for 9-11. But wait, Osama in Afghanistan was responsible, and so we went to war against Afghanistan and are still there two decades later. Then Cheney said Iraq was responsible, so Iraq II invasion. Now Saudis are responsible for 9-11, so we sell them arms and let USA citizens sue them for damages. Two countries invaded, one country sold arms and sued in USA courts. 9-11 just keeps giving and giving, not to mention the excuse for the NSA to dramatically expand the National Surveillance/Police State and collect and store everyone’s emails, phone conversations, etc.

No doubt more enemies responsible for 9-11 will be found, perhaps when Mueller’s Trump-Russia witch hunt goes into overdrive. Perhaps McCain and Schumer will cut a deal, with Hillary elevated to her rightful White House throne in exchange for a war against Russia. Meanwhile, Bush II, the FBI, others blocking the investigation, and Arizona and Florida flight schools remain part of MSM and collective USA amnesia.

BTW I watched live 9-11 coverage, a good moment for CNN. CNN announcers described in advance the tower demolitions (peripheral towers), and then boom down they went. Not sure why that narrative is even questioned.

“BTW I watched live 9-11 coverage, a good moment for CNN. CNN announcers described in advance the tower demolitions (peripheral towers), and then boom down they went. Not sure why that narrative is even questioned.”

There were no demolitions. Only one peripheral tower collapsed, WTC7.

The NYFD abandoned early on, any attempt to fight the fires in 7 and the media was informed that the building was likely to fall.

If not demolition, then perhaps gravity or termites producing explosive methane gas brought down the towers in the aftermath of the airliners hitting the main towers. Or maybe an ingenious architectural design, and the towers were like origami that spontaneously unraveled and combusted. Yes, the buildings brought themselves down, and it is time to quit blaming the Saudis.

Most amazing is that these towers were in the middle of a large city (NYC) with good live real-time coverage by CNN, many videos, eyewitnesses, and engineers and architects adding expertise. Yet no agreement on what happened going on two decades. Similarly no agreement who is responsible even after invasions of multiple countries. Saudis were smart to make a trade deal and buy USA-made weapons rather than see their leadership dismembered and sodomized and their cities similarly turned to rubble. Trump’s art of the deal is more civilized (so far) than Sec of State Hillary’s murderous barbarism. Only thing that bothers me is that both the Saudis and Trump in their speeches targeted Iran, which means Syria and the war on Russia also loom large.

“Most amazing is that these towers were in the middle of a large city (NYC) with good live real-time coverage by CNN, many videos, eyewitnesses, and engineers and architects adding expertise. Yet no agreement on what happened going on two decades.”

A&E 911 is a political organization, seeking a political investigation.
No one knows for absolute fact, which columns, flanges, floor trusses, failed in what order, shifting load, until something catastrophically failed, progressively collapsing the buildings.

The House committee on assassinations was turned into a circus by a bogus analysis of a dictabelt recording. Blakey, the head of the committee, went on to write a bogus book, claiming the mafia killed JFK. I have no illusions that an A&E 911 based political re-investigation of 9/11 will be an honest investigation of the facts.

“Similarly no agreement who is responsible even after invasions of multiple countries.”

As the current mayor of Chicago said, never let a crisis go to waste. Iraq was invaded, despite having no connection to 9/11. As with many other past events, it is going to be decades before the truth will come out.

I can hardly wait for Saudi Arabia to come unstuck. That place is as meddlesome as the USA and sows distress right across the muslim world. They are unworthy keepers of Islam holy sites. Iran is not at all like that and demonising it just shows up the dysfunctional regime that is Washington. So there will be more trouble. We can count on it!

As a senior member of Iran’s government and sitting on the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and Special Affairs Committee the man was responsible for overseeing a large number of terrorist activities and assassinations of Iranians overseas.

And as far as the Obama ‘deal’ with Iran, that will be shown as the biggest con game ever pulled over an American president – all you have to do see the results is wait for the mushroom clouds.

Moderate is relative
It is the best the US could have hoped for. Has Rouhani carried out more assassinations and done more meddling than the US?
Iran arguably needs nukes to protect itself from the biggest warmongering threat on the planet. Get a grip on reality

No wonder people look at what is going on in the USA and decide that people are plain ole dumb.

Moderate in Iran is like choosing between Stalin and Castro.

“Free elections in Iran” you have to be kidding.

Who picked the candidates to be put on the ballots? Yeah, the cleric dictators that actually run Iran.

Next time you need a reality check remember what happened to William Buckley, the 1983 Beruit Barracks bombing, the Khobar Towers bombings, the 1998 Kenyan bombings, the USS Cole bombing, and the numerous US soldiers killed in Iraq as a result of help provided to insurgents in Iraq.

This is very good news for America because one way or another we must deal with Iran. A gigantic roadblock in this relationship is the perception that Washington has created over the years as Iran being a larger than life boogeyman that threatens our very way of life and existence. A little research shows that in regard to Iran’s attitude towards America anyone saying that Iran has good reason not to trust the American government is making an understatement.

America through its foreign policy has reeked havoc upon many countries, but few societies have been affected or suffered from our meddling as much as Iran. The article below titled, “We Must Deal With Iran” delves into the history and bad blood that exist between the two nations.

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